In the thread on the head of state you wrote (and it was way off topic):
“Environmentalists would be correct about growth if doubling our GDP led to doubling the amount of materials, energy and pollution associated with production and consumption. But this need not be the case. That is, infinite economic growth is possible, as long as:
- the amount of raw materials extracted and energy produced is at or below some base sustainable level;
- any additional negative externalities (ie. pollution) are kept below the “sink” capacity of nature; and
- we have a fiat money system.”
Well continued growth may be possible if these conditions are met, but are these conditions being met in reality? For example, these figures (taken from Wikipedia; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_resources_and_consumption ) show the world wide increase in various forms of energy use from1980 to 2006:
In the same time, the world population has increased from about 4.4 billion to about 6.5 billion. I’m not sure whether the increase in energy usage is simply driven by an increase in population, or whether it is because certain countries are using more per person; the data to determine the cause of the growth are readily available if you are interested. In any case, it is not sustainable, because you can see a large portion of the growth in energy usage is from non-renewable resources.
So it is fine to say that continued growth is sustainable, given certain conditions, but this is not what is happening in practise.
Merely pointing out that growth economics are compatible with a sustainable world.
To which I responded:
You haven’t proven this, of course. What happens when you hit the “base sustainable level”?
But regardless of whether it is possible or not, you’ve hit on possibly the most important thing you’ve even said on this blog with those first two points. Is it that you don’t have any ideas how to implement them, or you don’t really believe what you’re saying?
(just following sam’s lead in shifting this thread to a more appropriate place)
This has been bandied around for some years now – horrendous! Much more research needs to be done by local councils before they sign up to anything remotely resembling privatisation.
We in the Far North have already had privatisation of some of the services that used to belong to the ratepayers. The latest is a big Australian company called Transfield which now runs our ferry. The local Health enterprise trust has consistently put in tenders to run or to take it over, but the council has consistently ignored them, running it through a LATE and now through a private company. The community which actually uses and needs the service has no say, the fares have gone up and the timetable is run to suit the company, not the community.
Water and waste water are likely to go to the same company.
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bjchip
Posted January 15, 2010 at 3:26 PM
Owen was also off topic. I am happy to work through this here.
We have never run out of resource and never will.
As resources get more difficult to find and extract the price goes up and we find substitutes.
Economics 101 without any comprehension of what happens WHEN IT DOESN’T WORK. Why not? Because in every instance when a civilization has “hit the wall” and been unable to substitute for some essential (water being the most common example), that civilization has disappeared from the face of the earth. You are giving a perfect explanation of how things work as long as they work… but not of what happens when your model fails. You are not acknowledging any risk of it failing, yet we know that there are examples of such events scattered throughout all of human history.
respectfully
BJ
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bjchip
Posted January 15, 2010 at 3:39 PM
All we need is the human mind and energy and they are all available.
And as long as the sun shines there is plenty of energy
No… you need the ability to collect that sunshine and concentrate it into forms useful in engineering terms. We don’t do that very well yet Owen. You wax optimistic but I do not think you are watching the stuff outside your little patch well enough.
We have already poisoned our climate. What more will we do to our children in the short time before that bites our bums?
respectfully
BJ
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Janine
Posted January 15, 2010 at 3:50 PM
‘Virtual water’ is only one form of water – the actual stuff we all need to drink, bathe and grow our gardens is not evenly spread. Despite Owen’s sleight of hand with ‘virtual water’ figures, whole cities in some parts of the globe are suffering water shortages not to mention formerly huge rivers being sucked dry.
The comment about water and Canterbury is disingenuous: with a small number of people hogging access for their private profit the availability of water for other things like ecosystems and recreation is restricted.
Real water is a real issue.
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Shunda barunda
Posted January 16, 2010 at 12:15 PM
There is a war looming in Greymouth over the proposed coastal pathway, a fascinating division between the more forward thinking residents and the old “grumpy” guard.
Who will win? will the West Coast begin its next 150 years with a better outlook than the past? will we shake off the narrow minded thinking and embrace the natural beauty of our region, finally, after 150 years of apathy?
Exciting times
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greenfly
Posted January 16, 2010 at 12:42 PM
“Will we shake off the narrow minded thinking and embrace the natural beauty of our region”
Bad timing Shunda, there’s a National Government in!
Wait til the Greens take the helm, then you’ll get your wish.
In the meantime, gird your loins and prepare to see the old guard triumph!
Bulldozer Brownlee, at your service!
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icehawk
Posted January 16, 2010 at 5:53 PM
BJ,
Give up. Owen McShane repeats that like a broken record, and never bothers to respond to the point you’re making.
You call McShane’s comment “Economics 101 without any comprehension of what happens WHEN IT DOESN’T WORK.” Stage 1 economics courses that I’ve seen cover in some detail the concept of market failure, and the situations in which they do (and do not) occur. It’s not enough to teach a model of a market: they teach when and why to apply that model and when it does and doesn’t work. McShane’s monotonous repetition of his talking points is not as sophisticated as freshman economics.
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Owen McShane
Posted January 16, 2010 at 8:26 PM
Icehawk
I was studying market failure probably before you were born and have never denied the need to internalise the externalities.
Please find an example of my writings where I have done so.
I concede that the difference between our world view is that I believe that markets work most of the time and tend to self correct most of the time while human ignorance means that our interventions all too often make things worse. The example are too numerous to mention.
ON the other hand central planners tend to assume that market failure is the norm and that intervention is therefore always required to set things right. The most casual scan of the outcomes of the soviet experiment should prove that wrong. Markets distribute so much information. No one person knows how to make a pencil. So how can any one person calculate its carbon footprint?
Naturally the politicians and the lawyers long for this new justification for the exercise of power and fee grinding.
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Trevor29
Posted January 16, 2010 at 9:18 PM
To put the global energy consumption in perspctive, 15.8 TW is around 0.01% of the sun’s energy falling on the earth. We will run out of oil, coal, gas and uranium but the sun directly (solar photovoltaic or solar thermal) or indirectly (wind, wave, ocean thermal, biomass) can provide all our needs, and there is also geothermal and tidal sources. We need to get on with building the plant to harness these resources while we still have the oil, gas and coal to provide the means to do so.
Trevor.
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Janine
Posted January 17, 2010 at 8:04 AM
And I’m beginning to see that Owen has no comprehension of Green thinking at all! We are not central planners, but questioners of the status quo. If markets really did work most of the time, and the examples of how they don’t are too numerous to mention, then there would be far less need to analyse how to correct them or in fact to do things differently.
Throwing tax-payers’ money at failing finance companies is not very consistent with letting the market decide, nor is it what Greens think is an intelligent response to market failure. (And please don’t go into lengthy explanations of why this is not a true market situation – given the fallibility and frailty of human nature it is merely an extreme example of what happens if you ‘leave it up to the market’. Some rules are needed.)
I also think that extrapolating from your own particular circumstances (we are the richest, healthiest etc) is only marginally useful in a global context. Of course WE (middle-class New Zealanders) are, but that is hardly a universal pattern or a universal panacea. Some bits of other societies are even more rich, etc though perhaps unhealthily so, esepcially for those they rob or exploit to get there. Wealth and happiness are relative concepts; for many of us it is not about money at all but more intangible things. Money is sometimes a means but never an end in itself.
In fact, I think, given his lifestyle as he describes it, Owen understands this very well, unlike some others who contribute here. We probably have more in common than he realises.
The pencil thing is a weird example: most of us have been saying all along that individuals alone, while responsible for their actions, can’t by themselves create society’s needs. It is more a question of how that collective endeavour is generated and where it is directed. Design does come into most collective (and individual) actions and design does need to take account of a wide range of variables, including demand and supply.
Deciding we are some kind of off-shoot of the old communism is either disingenuous or deluded – we’d have a better conversation if we understood each other’s real concerns better. I get the feeling I’d like to visit Owen’s place and have a genuinely stimulating conversation about the things that matter – but this determination to paint Greens as hard-line central planners makes it difficult.
Perhaps the best place to start is with our basic philosophy: ecological wisdom, social justice, peaceful means and appropriate decision-making.
It’s a process, not a rigid set of rules which is why we can disagree with each over many things, but agree about what we are trying to do.
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kahikatea
Posted January 17, 2010 at 8:43 AM
Janine, why do we need happiness when we can have consumer goods instead?
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Janine
Posted January 17, 2010 at 8:58 AM
Indeed!
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Owen McShane
Posted January 17, 2010 at 10:09 AM
Janine,
If I was criticising Greens or greens I would address them and name them.
When I criticise Central Planners I am addressing central planners.
The Soviet Central planners who promoted High density monocentric cities were certainly not Greens or greens.
And most of our own central planners are not either – although many use Green arguments to promote their ends.
The Central planners always have to oppose what most people want to do because otherwise they are out of a job and can go home.
The Greens who are tempted to become over committed to central planners are not communists or even socialists – they are at much greater risk of promoting fascistic ideas. The fascists said we could keep our private property but could only use it to serve the greater objectives of the state.
Our own RMA is careful not to promote the “good” but only to require that if we do something we must avoid remedy or mitigate the bad. The Disrict Plan being foisted on Kaipara District openly says that they have set 20ha as the minimum lot size so that just about everyone will have to apply for a consent and will have to do “good works” (at their own cost) to get one. The trouble is the planners “good works” and my “good works” are not normally the same. But I have to spend my limited resources on what they want before I can spend it on what I want.
That is good old fashioned fascism.
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BluePeter
Posted January 17, 2010 at 10:17 AM
Total: 9.48 TW -> 15.8 TW
Is it that you don’t have any ideas how to implement them, or you don’t really believe what you’re saying?
I think your definition of “sustainable” is too narrow.
Environmentalist thinking tends to make projections based on known “resources”, then adds in growing populations, and – viola – environmental catastrophe.
History shows that resources are what ever we decide them to be. We apply creativity and knowledge and we replace. It used to take a whole native forest to keep a village warm in the winter. Now water over a dam keeps whole cities warm forever. We always replace, adapt and adjust. Nature made us that way.
Not saying we should be wasteful.
Population growth is at the core of this argument. Market forces contain population growth easily. To be blunt, if there are too many people, they starve and/or kill each other.
As Owen points out, first world populations are declining.
OK, you don’t really believe what you said earlier, then.
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Janine
Posted January 17, 2010 at 11:04 AM
Ummm – do you mean me? What do you mean? Or are you talking to BP and/or Owen? I’m confused.
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Owen McShane
Posted January 17, 2010 at 11:12 AM
IT is not just that having kids is expensive.
Until recently, children were a necessary investment.
Everyone use child labour– especially on the farms. Indeed our school day and school year is designed to meet the needs of rural children to be home at the right time of day and of season.
Also in the absence of welfare state pensions children were necessary to long after their aging parents – if their parents were lucky enough to age.
So people were prepared to forego other expenditure to invest in raising children to adulthood.
Now, children are kept out of the labour force as long as possible instead are incarcerated in expensive educational institutions. And as they grow they are much more avid consumers than their parents who have generally tired of keeping up with the mythical Jones’s. And the state is a more reliable pension provider than children who as soon as their parents begin to make demands on them (as part of the traditional exchange) disappear to the other side of the world.
It is not surprising that family formation rates are so low – around 1.5 in much of Western Europe.
The US is the anomaly. It should have the lowest family formation rates of all being riches and having high female literacy. But there is a third factor in the equation. One’s confidence in the future. Americans still believe in the American Dream (and this applies to those who migrate to America – including those thousands of European Scientist etc) and hence are willing to bring children into the world.
The European angst means that families are much more reluctant to do so.
Market forces? Well, yes, but a more accurate term is probably cost and benefit analysis.
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Owen McShane
Posted January 17, 2010 at 11:27 AM
Janine,
Yes those waves of creative destruction.
The coloseum in Rome is similarly run down since gladiatorial combat went out of favour.
Schumpeter’s waves of creative destruction get higher and more frequent as technological change become more rapid and more extensive.
Remember slide rules and theodolites?
Not to mention Radiograms – and telegrams. And gesteter machines and telexes. And typewriters.
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Janine
Posted January 17, 2010 at 11:27 AM
I think there are more complex reasons for having children than these! Average figures rarely give you a true picture of anything but trends.
Yes, it would be even more creative if it were less wasteful of resources in the first place and more effort was made to re-use and recycle after the event. Did you think I was suggesting that things should stay the same? You really do have an odd view of us then.
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Owen McShane
Posted January 17, 2010 at 11:39 AM
Of course, these are generalisations and apply only to explaining the behaviour of large populations.
There are still many individuals who decide to have children (or don’t make any decision at all and it just happens).
But when demographers have to explain the recent changes in family formation rates these conclusions have good explanatory power for the the major correlations.
One of the more interesting questions is why the Catholic states such as Italy Spain and France have much lower family formation rates than the protestant states of Europe, even though these Catholic states are generally legally or socially opposed to contraception, abortion and divorce.
There are explanations and, as you say, they are complex but believable.
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Owen McShane
Posted January 17, 2010 at 11:49 AM
No I was not suggesting that at all.
It is just part of the discussion of what we notice and what we don’t. The value of the small things that are wiped out by creative destruction is often much greater than the value of the ones we notice.
And actually most buildings are recycled. They normally only fall into disrepair if the total economy in which they are embedded is in serious decline (as in Detroit) or they are structurally unsound or new planning regulations prohibit their change of use.
For example, churches are “recycled” as restaurants – like my favourite restaurant in Houston.
Theatres become auction rooms. Hotels become apartments.
Industrial lofts become apartments.
Old wharf buildings become Chocolate factories and special retail centres (Ghiridelli Square in San Francisco)
Industrial incinerators become shopping centres. The Viaduct market in Freemans Bay.
Once Detroit recovers as some new centre based on some new industries I wonder what those buildings will become. I wouldn’t write them off just yet.
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the lawless butler
Posted January 17, 2010 at 12:09 PM
“Industrial incinerators become shopping centres”.
(Bonfire of the Vanities).
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BluePeter
Posted January 17, 2010 at 12:41 PM
>>OK, you don’t really believe what you said earlier, then.
Economic growth and a sustainable environment are perfectly possible, for the reasons previously explained. For example, the resource use of music on an ipod is infinitely smaller than the resource use printing and distributing 45s.
Just one example of how we get more efficient and make more money using fewer resources.
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Janine
Posted January 17, 2010 at 12:42 PM
They are images of an economy in decline – that is the point. Ozymandias in a modern context. Wasteful hubris.
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Owen McShane
Posted January 17, 2010 at 12:57 PM
A single urban economy in decline at the present time.
That is a common story throughout history – especially for cities based almost entirely on a single industry.
But they typically bounce back.
What amazes me is how Vesuvius keeps burying Pompeii and people keep rebuilding Pompeii.
We are a risk taking species.
Lawless butler:
Bonfire of the VAnities? I missed that one. I had something to do with the Victoria park market and enjoyed Bonfire of the Vanities but cannot make the connection.
Being fairly newbie at frogblog commentariat I have just figured out what General Debate is or can be about.. the ‘General’ being commenters whose input doesn’t really fit blog threads elsewhere etc..
To the point: I’d put the following at the end of another post, it now becoming somewhat more significant since a suspicion arises that Mr Locke may not be aware of how hopes/plans and so forth in his private Members Bill before Parliament are in point of fact opposing partys’ ambition rather more than his own..
pps: entirely missing from this debate so far is the extent of corporate rule, as opposed to national government’s, over our (NZ) affairs. Would a republic serve them better.. or not..?
To such corporates as these – American example and all too often illustrations of – national governments are to be bought. Yep, outwardly retained democracy – the looks good factor – internally financed and lobbied to serve special and/or so-privileged interests.
Recently the G.W.Bush administration has shown itself an excellent example of what I am trying to say. True, it pushed for unitary presidential power; reliant on congressional majorities.. and even today in the new administration a Senate Republican cohort fractures bipartisan efforts by the peoples’ President. Democracy, yes: but one party rule the goal. And sustained. And when they lose the ‘big one’ they behave very badly indeed. For, yes for, their special interest backers!
In enzed I am conscious of a Mr. Shirtcliffe and others whose names escape me for the moment being all for first past the post electoral democracy. Why? Clearly such an option would advantage the fellows’ interests. Likely effect access and operable controls for same. Wealthier than most or with access/ease to elite executive/individual/parties wanting electoral and structural rearrangemnts would they be up to paying for embedded expertise of the type Cass Sunstein is presently proposing to counter mercenary Republican reactionaries in the US for PBO.? Mightn’t a Republic facilitate this? Does a relative quiet from the fellow signify things going to plan.? Am I paranoid?
In fairly facing that question, I am reminded of how quickly a Mr. Douglas tossed out Statute and Laws to facilitate a corporate must mantra in the 1980s. Couldn’t do it quick enough he boasted in at least one of his books. Yet just as equally couldn’t really say why: almost weird then how “Mr.K” that Republican king of the preceding decade had mandated a like why and how for the small Latin American country of his master’s (Nixon) conquest. For undisclosed special interests of course.
Republics we should be talking about.. debating.. and not simply whether kiwis have one or not..
Hope tou agree… and this is the place to begin some of that.
As BJ oft signs off, Respectfully,
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samiuela
Posted January 17, 2010 at 8:43 PM
BP,
You have a point about economic growth being possible and yet still sustainable. The US and China like to refer to a concept called “carbon intensity”, which is basically how much CO2 is emitted per unit of economic activity. The general idea is that if you increase the efficiency of an economy you can increase economic activity without increasing total CO2 emissions, or even reducing CO2 emissions. You’ll find a much better explanation here: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSPEK12370
The problem with the whole concept of carbon intensity is that what matters to the environment is the total amount of CO2 emissions. If economic growth is increasing faster than the efficiency of the economy, then even though the carbon intensity may be reducing, the total CO2 emissions still increase. To reduce total CO2 emissions to a sustainable level whilst still maintaining economic growth will require some amazing improvements in “carbon intensity”. Are the improvements happening fast enough? Figures such as I presented at the beginning of this thread suggest the improvements are not happening fast enough, because use of the carbon based fuels have increased significantly since 1980.
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Owen McShane
Posted January 18, 2010 at 10:16 AM
Is Shane Jones the only MP in Parliament who understands the importance of Secure Property rights to enabling investment in productive activity?
Those young Northland Maori who have occupied private land with the clear intention of ensuring it will never be sold to someone who wants to invest in it, and who can do so without the police arresting them for trespass, represent a major nail in the economic coffin that all New Zealanders will soon have to lie in.
The police would arrest them if they invaded a property and stole a stereo or a cow. But the current owners’ losses from their activities will be hundreds of thousands of dollars. Why would anyone invest in Northland while this is endorsed by Government and senior academics.
This of course follows on the heels of the occupation of a building by the Maori tenants who had lead to the building being sold to an Australian investor because they had defaulted on their lease. They claimed they were not occupying the building (which they agreed did belong to the Australian) but were occupying the land which they claimed was really theirs.
The police agreed and said it could do nothing until a private action settled the matter in the Courts.
Our rights in property are under assault from all directions.
I should not be surprised that no New Zealander reviewer has reviewed Mike Moore’s excellent book on the benefits of globalisation, free trade and private property rights. A Chinese newspaper has.
But they are committed to economic growth the development.
We seem committed to stagnation.
“What this is saying – and no amount of obfuscation can alter the fact – is that a 1000-year “global temperature” chart was created – fabricated – by using tree-ring proxy data from 1000 to 1960, then using actual temperatures from 1961 on, to “hide” the fact that the tree ring proxies showed a “decline” from 1960 onwards. There can not be a more blatant example of using apples and oranges to “prove” a point than this, and they would have got away with it if not for the Climategate whistleblower.”
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big bro
Posted January 18, 2010 at 1:42 PM
Great article BluePeter and thanks for the link.
Watch your post disappear in an avalanche of negative karma as the Greens go into full censor mode.
2010 will be the year when the world wakes up to the climate change con and the thoroughly corrupt actions of the hard left.
Amazing how BP displays his wholly unjustified preferences. And hoists their so-called source upon folks.
Should one go there and examine what the scientists were actually saying to each other it is very apparent that poneke’s interpretation is his own. In addition, and serving to spoil any critical value poneke might otherwise claim, he makes stuff up in order to force or coerce belief (whatever) in his proposition.
Best advice I could give BP it go read that blog again, get what the scientists are claimed* to have written in emails and make his own opinion out of this.
* qv footnote — a very explicit admission and, I’ll aver when push comes to shove, poneke’s cop-out.
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BluePeter
Posted January 18, 2010 at 1:48 PM
“The emails show that some of them at least concede in private that the world was warmer 1000 years ago (in the Medieval Warm Period) than it is today, but the emails also show they had to get rid of the MWP from the records to claim today’s temperatures are unprecedented.
They show Team members becoming alarmed and despondent at global temperatures peaking in 1998, then slowly falling to the present, while publicly trying to hide the fact that there was a peak and now a decline.
Revealingly, they show them even smugly nominating each other for prestigious awards, using factually wrong details in the information sent in nominating letters in support of the awards.”
It is quite wrong for people to pretend ClimateGate is a non-issue. It’s actually bigger than the AGW debate – it’s about trust in scientific process.
If the process is corrupt, then how can we act on the conclusions?
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BluePeter
Posted January 18, 2010 at 1:54 PM
Watch your post disappear in an avalanche of negative karma as the Greens go into full censor mode.
Oh, absolutely.
They’ve bet the farm on AGW, so they can do nothing else. Like devout Christians renouncing God, it’s just not going to happen, no matter what arguments are made.
You mean like this, ‘fly – more a criticism of the MSM than William himself, actually.
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greenfly
Posted January 19, 2010 at 12:40 PM
Read it earlier Toad – nice piece, though it’ll make bro shitty – mocking our future King, on the Throne!
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big bro
Posted January 19, 2010 at 12:41 PM
Hey Toad
How about that Poneke!
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greenfly
Posted January 19, 2010 at 12:42 PM
Hey Bro – how about that Royal Flush!
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Mark
Posted January 19, 2010 at 1:02 PM
A Photo of the Royal Barbie graces the Dom’s front page.
And our PM is drinking Beer From The Bottle!
John ! Don’t teach our future King to be Louche and Profligate.
That is Very Australian,
Whereas We
use glasses….eh?
bro, the media release would suggest that the amendments proposed render the Bill something completely different from ACT’s/Garrett’s original 3 strikes bill.
I await the detail, but at first pass the amendments seem to address many of my original concerns about the Bill being unfair and offensive to human rights.
I’m still concerned that someone who, as an irresponsible youth, gets two convictions for wounding with intent can subsequently lead a blameless life for 30 years and then will get banged up for life if he or she is found guilty of a vehicular manslaughter.
I suppose the “manifestly unjust” provision can address that, but I would prefer more certainty that a person in that circumstance would receive a sentence more befitting the circumstances of the offence.
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big bro
Posted January 19, 2010 at 6:54 PM
Toad
It amazes me that you have concern for the human rights of scum, leaving that aside this is still a good bill.
While it falls short of what ACT originally wanted it will give strength to the good work of great men like Garth McVicar.
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greenfly
Posted January 19, 2010 at 8:36 PM
Toad
It amazes me that you have concern for the human rights of scum humans.
It is only a prototype, but the potential for energy from osmotic power (fresh water running into sea water) is around 2TW (2 million MegaWatts). This won’t solve all our energy problems but it will help a bit.
Trevor.
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Leave a Reply
Please use on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
BP,
In the thread on the head of state you wrote (and it was way off topic):
“Environmentalists would be correct about growth if doubling our GDP led to doubling the amount of materials, energy and pollution associated with production and consumption. But this need not be the case. That is, infinite economic growth is possible, as long as:
- the amount of raw materials extracted and energy produced is at or below some base sustainable level;
- any additional negative externalities (ie. pollution) are kept below the “sink” capacity of nature; and
- we have a fiat money system.”
Well continued growth may be possible if these conditions are met, but are these conditions being met in reality? For example, these figures (taken from Wikipedia; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_resources_and_consumption ) show the world wide increase in various forms of energy use from1980 to 2006:
Oil: 4.38 TW -> 5.74 TW
Gas: 1.80 TW -> 3.61 TW
Coal: 2.34 TW -> 4.27 TW
Hydroelectric: 0.599 TW -> 0.995 TW
Nuclear power: 0.253 TW -> 0.929 TW
Geothermal, wind,
solar energy, wood: 0.016 TW ->0.158 TW
Total: 9.48 TW -> 15.8 TW
In the same time, the world population has increased from about 4.4 billion to about 6.5 billion. I’m not sure whether the increase in energy usage is simply driven by an increase in population, or whether it is because certain countries are using more per person; the data to determine the cause of the growth are readily available if you are interested. In any case, it is not sustainable, because you can see a large portion of the growth in energy usage is from non-renewable resources.
So it is fine to say that continued growth is sustainable, given certain conditions, but this is not what is happening in practise.
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Merely pointing out that growth economics are compatible with a sustainable world.
To which I responded:
You haven’t proven this, of course. What happens when you hit the “base sustainable level”?
But regardless of whether it is possible or not, you’ve hit on possibly the most important thing you’ve even said on this blog with those first two points. Is it that you don’t have any ideas how to implement them, or you don’t really believe what you’re saying?
(just following sam’s lead in shifting this thread to a more appropriate place)
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Hi Frog,
Have you seen Rodney Hide’s plan to privatise Auckland water? Quite disturbing. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501241&objectid=10619 819&pnum=0
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This has been bandied around for some years now – horrendous! Much more research needs to be done by local councils before they sign up to anything remotely resembling privatisation.
We in the Far North have already had privatisation of some of the services that used to belong to the ratepayers. The latest is a big Australian company called Transfield which now runs our ferry. The local Health enterprise trust has consistently put in tenders to run or to take it over, but the council has consistently ignored them, running it through a LATE and now through a private company. The community which actually uses and needs the service has no say, the fares have gone up and the timetable is run to suit the company, not the community.
Water and waste water are likely to go to the same company.
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We have never run out of resource and never will.
As resources get more difficult to find and extract the price goes up and we find substitutes.
Economics 101 without any comprehension of what happens WHEN IT DOESN’T WORK. Why not? Because in every instance when a civilization has “hit the wall” and been unable to substitute for some essential (water being the most common example), that civilization has disappeared from the face of the earth. You are giving a perfect explanation of how things work as long as they work… but not of what happens when your model fails. You are not acknowledging any risk of it failing, yet we know that there are examples of such events scattered throughout all of human history.
respectfully
BJ
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And as long as the sun shines there is plenty of energy
No… you need the ability to collect that sunshine and concentrate it into forms useful in engineering terms. We don’t do that very well yet Owen. You wax optimistic but I do not think you are watching the stuff outside your little patch well enough.
We have already poisoned our climate. What more will we do to our children in the short time before that bites our bums?
respectfully
BJ
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The comment about water and Canterbury is disingenuous: with a small number of people hogging access for their private profit the availability of water for other things like ecosystems and recreation is restricted.
Real water is a real issue.
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There is a war looming in Greymouth over the proposed coastal pathway, a fascinating division between the more forward thinking residents and the old “grumpy” guard.
Who will win? will the West Coast begin its next 150 years with a better outlook than the past? will we shake off the narrow minded thinking and embrace the natural beauty of our region, finally, after 150 years of apathy?
Exciting times
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“Will we shake off the narrow minded thinking and embrace the natural beauty of our region”
Bad timing Shunda, there’s a National Government in!
Wait til the Greens take the helm, then you’ll get your wish.
In the meantime, gird your loins and prepare to see the old guard triumph!
Bulldozer Brownlee, at your service!
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BJ,
Give up. Owen McShane repeats that like a broken record, and never bothers to respond to the point you’re making.
You call McShane’s comment “Economics 101 without any comprehension of what happens WHEN IT DOESN’T WORK.” Stage 1 economics courses that I’ve seen cover in some detail the concept of market failure, and the situations in which they do (and do not) occur. It’s not enough to teach a model of a market: they teach when and why to apply that model and when it does and doesn’t work. McShane’s monotonous repetition of his talking points is not as sophisticated as freshman economics.
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Icehawk
I was studying market failure probably before you were born and have never denied the need to internalise the externalities.
Please find an example of my writings where I have done so.
I concede that the difference between our world view is that I believe that markets work most of the time and tend to self correct most of the time while human ignorance means that our interventions all too often make things worse. The example are too numerous to mention.
ON the other hand central planners tend to assume that market failure is the norm and that intervention is therefore always required to set things right. The most casual scan of the outcomes of the soviet experiment should prove that wrong. Markets distribute so much information. No one person knows how to make a pencil. So how can any one person calculate its carbon footprint?
Naturally the politicians and the lawyers long for this new justification for the exercise of power and fee grinding.
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To put the global energy consumption in perspctive, 15.8 TW is around 0.01% of the sun’s energy falling on the earth. We will run out of oil, coal, gas and uranium but the sun directly (solar photovoltaic or solar thermal) or indirectly (wind, wave, ocean thermal, biomass) can provide all our needs, and there is also geothermal and tidal sources. We need to get on with building the plant to harness these resources while we still have the oil, gas and coal to provide the means to do so.
Trevor.
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And I’m beginning to see that Owen has no comprehension of Green thinking at all! We are not central planners, but questioners of the status quo. If markets really did work most of the time, and the examples of how they don’t are too numerous to mention, then there would be far less need to analyse how to correct them or in fact to do things differently.
Throwing tax-payers’ money at failing finance companies is not very consistent with letting the market decide, nor is it what Greens think is an intelligent response to market failure. (And please don’t go into lengthy explanations of why this is not a true market situation – given the fallibility and frailty of human nature it is merely an extreme example of what happens if you ‘leave it up to the market’. Some rules are needed.)
I also think that extrapolating from your own particular circumstances (we are the richest, healthiest etc) is only marginally useful in a global context. Of course WE (middle-class New Zealanders) are, but that is hardly a universal pattern or a universal panacea. Some bits of other societies are even more rich, etc though perhaps unhealthily so, esepcially for those they rob or exploit to get there. Wealth and happiness are relative concepts; for many of us it is not about money at all but more intangible things. Money is sometimes a means but never an end in itself.
In fact, I think, given his lifestyle as he describes it, Owen understands this very well, unlike some others who contribute here. We probably have more in common than he realises.
The pencil thing is a weird example: most of us have been saying all along that individuals alone, while responsible for their actions, can’t by themselves create society’s needs. It is more a question of how that collective endeavour is generated and where it is directed. Design does come into most collective (and individual) actions and design does need to take account of a wide range of variables, including demand and supply.
Deciding we are some kind of off-shoot of the old communism is either disingenuous or deluded – we’d have a better conversation if we understood each other’s real concerns better. I get the feeling I’d like to visit Owen’s place and have a genuinely stimulating conversation about the things that matter – but this determination to paint Greens as hard-line central planners makes it difficult.
Perhaps the best place to start is with our basic philosophy: ecological wisdom, social justice, peaceful means and appropriate decision-making.
It’s a process, not a rigid set of rules which is why we can disagree with each over many things, but agree about what we are trying to do.
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Janine, why do we need happiness when we can have consumer goods instead?
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Indeed!
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Janine,
If I was criticising Greens or greens I would address them and name them.
When I criticise Central Planners I am addressing central planners.
The Soviet Central planners who promoted High density monocentric cities were certainly not Greens or greens.
And most of our own central planners are not either – although many use Green arguments to promote their ends.
The Central planners always have to oppose what most people want to do because otherwise they are out of a job and can go home.
The Greens who are tempted to become over committed to central planners are not communists or even socialists – they are at much greater risk of promoting fascistic ideas. The fascists said we could keep our private property but could only use it to serve the greater objectives of the state.
Our own RMA is careful not to promote the “good” but only to require that if we do something we must avoid remedy or mitigate the bad. The Disrict Plan being foisted on Kaipara District openly says that they have set 20ha as the minimum lot size so that just about everyone will have to apply for a consent and will have to do “good works” (at their own cost) to get one. The trouble is the planners “good works” and my “good works” are not normally the same. But I have to spend my limited resources on what they want before I can spend it on what I want.
That is good old fashioned fascism.
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I think your definition of “sustainable” is too narrow.
Environmentalist thinking tends to make projections based on known “resources”, then adds in growing populations, and – viola – environmental catastrophe.
History shows that resources are what ever we decide them to be. We apply creativity and knowledge and we replace. It used to take a whole native forest to keep a village warm in the winter. Now water over a dam keeps whole cities warm forever. We always replace, adapt and adjust. Nature made us that way.
Not saying we should be wasteful.
Population growth is at the core of this argument. Market forces contain population growth easily. To be blunt, if there are too many people, they starve and/or kill each other.
As Owen points out, first world populations are declining.
Market forces at work. Having kids is expensive.
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Just got sent this fabulous album of photos of market forces at work: http://www.marchandmeffre.com/index.html
Agree with you about Kaipara plan and minimum lot size…
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OK, you don’t really believe what you said earlier, then.
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Ummm – do you mean me? What do you mean? Or are you talking to BP and/or Owen? I’m confused.
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IT is not just that having kids is expensive.
Until recently, children were a necessary investment.
Everyone use child labour– especially on the farms. Indeed our school day and school year is designed to meet the needs of rural children to be home at the right time of day and of season.
Also in the absence of welfare state pensions children were necessary to long after their aging parents – if their parents were lucky enough to age.
So people were prepared to forego other expenditure to invest in raising children to adulthood.
Now, children are kept out of the labour force as long as possible instead are incarcerated in expensive educational institutions. And as they grow they are much more avid consumers than their parents who have generally tired of keeping up with the mythical Jones’s. And the state is a more reliable pension provider than children who as soon as their parents begin to make demands on them (as part of the traditional exchange) disappear to the other side of the world.
It is not surprising that family formation rates are so low – around 1.5 in much of Western Europe.
The US is the anomaly. It should have the lowest family formation rates of all being riches and having high female literacy. But there is a third factor in the equation. One’s confidence in the future. Americans still believe in the American Dream (and this applies to those who migrate to America – including those thousands of European Scientist etc) and hence are willing to bring children into the world.
The European angst means that families are much more reluctant to do so.
Market forces? Well, yes, but a more accurate term is probably cost and benefit analysis.
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Janine,
Yes those waves of creative destruction.
The coloseum in Rome is similarly run down since gladiatorial combat went out of favour.
Schumpeter’s waves of creative destruction get higher and more frequent as technological change become more rapid and more extensive.
Remember slide rules and theodolites?
Not to mention Radiograms – and telegrams. And gesteter machines and telexes. And typewriters.
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I think there are more complex reasons for having children than these! Average figures rarely give you a true picture of anything but trends.
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Sorry, talkiing to BP.
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Yes, it would be even more creative if it were less wasteful of resources in the first place and more effort was made to re-use and recycle after the event. Did you think I was suggesting that things should stay the same? You really do have an odd view of us then.
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Of course, these are generalisations and apply only to explaining the behaviour of large populations.
There are still many individuals who decide to have children (or don’t make any decision at all and it just happens).
But when demographers have to explain the recent changes in family formation rates these conclusions have good explanatory power for the the major correlations.
One of the more interesting questions is why the Catholic states such as Italy Spain and France have much lower family formation rates than the protestant states of Europe, even though these Catholic states are generally legally or socially opposed to contraception, abortion and divorce.
There are explanations and, as you say, they are complex but believable.
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No I was not suggesting that at all.
It is just part of the discussion of what we notice and what we don’t. The value of the small things that are wiped out by creative destruction is often much greater than the value of the ones we notice.
And actually most buildings are recycled. They normally only fall into disrepair if the total economy in which they are embedded is in serious decline (as in Detroit) or they are structurally unsound or new planning regulations prohibit their change of use.
For example, churches are “recycled” as restaurants – like my favourite restaurant in Houston.
Theatres become auction rooms. Hotels become apartments.
Industrial lofts become apartments.
Old wharf buildings become Chocolate factories and special retail centres (Ghiridelli Square in San Francisco)
Industrial incinerators become shopping centres. The Viaduct market in Freemans Bay.
Once Detroit recovers as some new centre based on some new industries I wonder what those buildings will become. I wouldn’t write them off just yet.
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“Industrial incinerators become shopping centres”.
(Bonfire of the Vanities).
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>>OK, you don’t really believe what you said earlier, then.
Economic growth and a sustainable environment are perfectly possible, for the reasons previously explained. For example, the resource use of music on an ipod is infinitely smaller than the resource use printing and distributing 45s.
Just one example of how we get more efficient and make more money using fewer resources.
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They are images of an economy in decline – that is the point. Ozymandias in a modern context. Wasteful hubris.
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A single urban economy in decline at the present time.
That is a common story throughout history – especially for cities based almost entirely on a single industry.
But they typically bounce back.
What amazes me is how Vesuvius keeps burying Pompeii and people keep rebuilding Pompeii.
We are a risk taking species.
Lawless butler:
Bonfire of the VAnities? I missed that one. I had something to do with the Victoria park market and enjoyed Bonfire of the Vanities but cannot make the connection.
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Being fairly newbie at frogblog commentariat I have just figured out what General Debate is or can be about.. the ‘General’ being commenters whose input doesn’t really fit blog threads elsewhere etc..
To the point: I’d put the following at the end of another post, it now becoming somewhat more significant since a suspicion arises that Mr Locke may not be aware of how hopes/plans and so forth in his private Members Bill before Parliament are in point of fact opposing partys’ ambition rather more than his own..
pps: entirely missing from this debate so far is the extent of corporate rule, as opposed to national government’s, over our (NZ) affairs. Would a republic serve them better.. or not..?
To such corporates as these – American example and all too often illustrations of – national governments are to be bought. Yep, outwardly retained democracy – the looks good factor – internally financed and lobbied to serve special and/or so-privileged interests.
Recently the G.W.Bush administration has shown itself an excellent example of what I am trying to say. True, it pushed for unitary presidential power; reliant on congressional majorities.. and even today in the new administration a Senate Republican cohort fractures bipartisan efforts by the peoples’ President. Democracy, yes: but one party rule the goal. And sustained. And when they lose the ‘big one’ they behave very badly indeed. For, yes for, their special interest backers!
In enzed I am conscious of a Mr. Shirtcliffe and others whose names escape me for the moment being all for first past the post electoral democracy. Why? Clearly such an option would advantage the fellows’ interests. Likely effect access and operable controls for same. Wealthier than most or with access/ease to elite executive/individual/parties wanting electoral and structural rearrangemnts would they be up to paying for embedded expertise of the type Cass Sunstein is presently proposing to counter mercenary Republican reactionaries in the US for PBO.? Mightn’t a Republic facilitate this? Does a relative quiet from the fellow signify things going to plan.? Am I paranoid?
In fairly facing that question, I am reminded of how quickly a Mr. Douglas tossed out Statute and Laws to facilitate a corporate must mantra in the 1980s. Couldn’t do it quick enough he boasted in at least one of his books. Yet just as equally couldn’t really say why: almost weird then how “Mr.K” that Republican king of the preceding decade had mandated a like why and how for the small Latin American country of his master’s (Nixon) conquest. For undisclosed special interests of course.
Republics we should be talking about.. debating.. and not simply whether kiwis have one or not..
Hope tou agree… and this is the place to begin some of that.
As BJ oft signs off, Respectfully,
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BP,
You have a point about economic growth being possible and yet still sustainable. The US and China like to refer to a concept called “carbon intensity”, which is basically how much CO2 is emitted per unit of economic activity. The general idea is that if you increase the efficiency of an economy you can increase economic activity without increasing total CO2 emissions, or even reducing CO2 emissions. You’ll find a much better explanation here: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSPEK12370
The problem with the whole concept of carbon intensity is that what matters to the environment is the total amount of CO2 emissions. If economic growth is increasing faster than the efficiency of the economy, then even though the carbon intensity may be reducing, the total CO2 emissions still increase. To reduce total CO2 emissions to a sustainable level whilst still maintaining economic growth will require some amazing improvements in “carbon intensity”. Are the improvements happening fast enough? Figures such as I presented at the beginning of this thread suggest the improvements are not happening fast enough, because use of the carbon based fuels have increased significantly since 1980.
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Is Shane Jones the only MP in Parliament who understands the importance of Secure Property rights to enabling investment in productive activity?
Those young Northland Maori who have occupied private land with the clear intention of ensuring it will never be sold to someone who wants to invest in it, and who can do so without the police arresting them for trespass, represent a major nail in the economic coffin that all New Zealanders will soon have to lie in.
The police would arrest them if they invaded a property and stole a stereo or a cow. But the current owners’ losses from their activities will be hundreds of thousands of dollars. Why would anyone invest in Northland while this is endorsed by Government and senior academics.
This of course follows on the heels of the occupation of a building by the Maori tenants who had lead to the building being sold to an Australian investor because they had defaulted on their lease. They claimed they were not occupying the building (which they agreed did belong to the Australian) but were occupying the land which they claimed was really theirs.
The police agreed and said it could do nothing until a private action settled the matter in the Courts.
Our rights in property are under assault from all directions.
I should not be surprised that no New Zealander reviewer has reviewed Mike Moore’s excellent book on the benefits of globalisation, free trade and private property rights. A Chinese newspaper has.
But they are committed to economic growth the development.
We seem committed to stagnation.
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Climate change scam:
http://poneke.wordpress.com/2010/01/15/gate/
“What this is saying – and no amount of obfuscation can alter the fact – is that a 1000-year “global temperature” chart was created – fabricated – by using tree-ring proxy data from 1000 to 1960, then using actual temperatures from 1961 on, to “hide” the fact that the tree ring proxies showed a “decline” from 1960 onwards. There can not be a more blatant example of using apples and oranges to “prove” a point than this, and they would have got away with it if not for the Climategate whistleblower.”
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Great article BluePeter and thanks for the link.
Watch your post disappear in an avalanche of negative karma as the Greens go into full censor mode.
2010 will be the year when the world wakes up to the climate change con and the thoroughly corrupt actions of the hard left.
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Amazing how BP displays his wholly unjustified preferences. And hoists their so-called source upon folks.
Should one go there and examine what the scientists were actually saying to each other it is very apparent that poneke’s interpretation is his own. In addition, and serving to spoil any critical value poneke might otherwise claim, he makes stuff up in order to force or coerce belief (whatever) in his proposition.
Best advice I could give BP it go read that blog again, get what the scientists are claimed* to have written in emails and make his own opinion out of this.
* qv footnote — a very explicit admission and, I’ll aver when push comes to shove, poneke’s cop-out.
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“The emails show that some of them at least concede in private that the world was warmer 1000 years ago (in the Medieval Warm Period) than it is today, but the emails also show they had to get rid of the MWP from the records to claim today’s temperatures are unprecedented.
They show Team members becoming alarmed and despondent at global temperatures peaking in 1998, then slowly falling to the present, while publicly trying to hide the fact that there was a peak and now a decline.
Revealingly, they show them even smugly nominating each other for prestigious awards, using factually wrong details in the information sent in nominating letters in support of the awards.”
It is quite wrong for people to pretend ClimateGate is a non-issue. It’s actually bigger than the AGW debate – it’s about trust in scientific process.
If the process is corrupt, then how can we act on the conclusions?
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Oh, absolutely.
They’ve bet the farm on AGW, so they can do nothing else. Like devout Christians renouncing God, it’s just not going to happen, no matter what arguments are made.
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BP@1.48pm
If the process is corrupt, then how can we act on the conclusions?
When did you first suppose the process corrupt?
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“avalanche of negative karma … absolutely! ”
You two fools!
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The guys here would like Big Bro and co to know – hey poets
– who he/they should be talking to.. karma and all..
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Oops.. shuddabe..
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Thar she blows!
“At the same time, he has challenged the federal government over its failed promise to take Japan to the International Court on the issue of whaling.”
Mine the seas of animals Bro, mine baby mine!
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Why can’t we all be more like Prince William!
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You mean like this, ‘fly – more a criticism of the MSM than William himself, actually.
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Read it earlier Toad – nice piece, though it’ll make bro shitty – mocking our future King, on the Throne!
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Hey Toad
How about that Poneke!
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A Photo of the Royal Barbie graces the Dom’s front page.
And our PM is drinking Beer From The Bottle!
John ! Don’t teach our future King to be Louche and Profligate.
That is Very Australian,
Whereas We
use glasses….eh?
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Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
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deaf dumd and blind
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@ big bro 4:30 PM
bro, the media release would suggest that the amendments proposed render the Bill something completely different from ACT’s/Garrett’s original 3 strikes bill.
I await the detail, but at first pass the amendments seem to address many of my original concerns about the Bill being unfair and offensive to human rights.
I’m still concerned that someone who, as an irresponsible youth, gets two convictions for wounding with intent can subsequently lead a blameless life for 30 years and then will get banged up for life if he or she is found guilty of a vehicular manslaughter.
I suppose the “manifestly unjust” provision can address that, but I would prefer more certainty that a person in that circumstance would receive a sentence more befitting the circumstances of the offence.
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Toad
It amazes me that you have concern for the human rights of scum, leaving that aside this is still a good bill.
While it falls short of what ACT originally wanted it will give strength to the good work of great men like Garth McVicar.
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Toad
It amazes me that you have concern for the human rights of
scumhumans.Like or Dislike:
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Statkraft have opened their osmotic power plant:
http://www.statkraft.com/energy-sources/osmotic-power/
It is only a prototype, but the potential for energy from osmotic power (fresh water running into sea water) is around 2TW (2 million MegaWatts). This won’t solve all our energy problems but it will help a bit.
Trevor.
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